TomTom Maps and Navigation Software Power Subaru’s New Infotainment Platform (Photo: Business Wire)

While I won’t be able to take advantage of the new technology offered by TomTom in its inaugural collaboration agreement with Subaru, I am interested in the development of one of America’s favorite vehicles, one that boasts the most safety features.

Subaru chose TomTom to provide global maps and navigation for their next generation infotainment platform, launching first in North America for the forthcoming 2017 Subaru Impreza. The audio and infotainment supplier HARMAN International is the Tier 1 system provider.

With four customer facing business units: Consumer, Telematics, Automotive and Licensing, TomTom is right up there with its navigation devices, action cameras for consumers and sport watches. They also provide fleet efficiency with the Telematics solutions. Their location based services are powered by a real-time map platform which leads to more automative driving for the auto industry.

TomTom’s map is kept up to date, taking into account the fact that every year about 15% of roads change. Their reliance on intelligent mapmaking allows communities to provide input to TomTom’s professional map expertise.

Only verified changes get entered into the database and sent on to the end-user in the Continuously Releasable Database. The database is always globally complete and seamless. Because of these features, the database is continuously releasable to deliver real-time updates to the end-user anytime. There is full traceability back to the source and customers can apply updates to the database easily.

]]>http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2016/09/22/subaru-and-tomtom-collaborate-on-2017-incar-infotainment-system/feed/0Avenza’s PDF Maps and Affiliate Program for Digital Nativeshttp://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2016/01/15/avenzas-pdf-maps-and-affiliate-program-for-digital-natives/
http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2016/01/15/avenzas-pdf-maps-and-affiliate-program-for-digital-natives/#commentsFri, 15 Jan 2016 18:35:25 +0000http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/?p=4313In a world that is rapidly becoming less paper based and more dependent upon digital products, the introduction of a map app that copies the model of iTunes and Kindle is an appealing commodity. Avenza’s PDF Maps does just this: makes PDF maps downloadable on mobile devices to be available anywhere – while abroad, in remote areas and in the back country.

Grand Canyon

In addition to this, Avenza has just launched its PDF Maps Affiliate Program for any retailer or business, including both online and physical stores, blogs, portals and information sites. This program makes it possible for retailers and businesses to now earn revenue by promoting and selling digital maps directly to its customers using affiliate links on websites or by using signage with QR codes. Each map sale conducted in this manner will earn the affiliate a share of the revenue.

Ted Florence, president of Avenza says, “Everyone wants to consume their data digitally these days. This is the generation – 18-30 somethings who are the consumers of the future and that’s how they think. You have music with iTunes, books with Kindle, everything’s going digital.”

Florence also points out that big companies like Blockbuster, Kodak, and Tower Records are going out of business because of technology advances. Companies like National Geographic, Rand McNally, or Westprint, who have provided traditional paper maps historically, are now challenged by Apple, Google, TomTom, or Garmin.

Toronto map

People may say they don’t need the PDF Maps app because they have Google Maps on their phones already. But if you are in a national park or somewhere that doesn’t have bandwidth, the phone GPS is not going to work. A PDF map downloaded before you get out of range is going to be a real plus.

Secondly, Google Maps does not provide bathymetric maps or maps of ski trails in a given area. It is not that good for very specific map information as PDF Maps are.

Thirdly, if you are traveling to Europe, Asia or South America, roaming charges can get very expensive if you use your Google Maps or other online search while traveling. It makes sense to download a PDF Map at a hotel or Starbucks where you have connectivity, so that you can use the map to navigate outside the data roaming.

Florence says their system now has about 350 maps in it and it’s growing. “There’s been over 2 million maps downloaded and we’re averaging few hundred thousand a month all over the world. People buy maps just like buying books and with PDF Maps you pay maybe $5 for a map of London that you need. The digital map on your phone knows your location. Prague is a good example because they don’t speak English. Having a map on your phone, shows you which way you’re facing and you don’t have to carry paper.”

Avenza has publishers from all over the world, including National Geographic, branches of the U.S. Government such as the U.S. Forest Service and USGS interested in the Affiliate Program.

“How do we make it interesting for others to partner with us?” says Florence. “That’s how the Affiliate program was born. We wanted to enable websites and other online services like TripAdvisor, Expedia, United Airlines, and even some of the blogs that cater to recreational lists, to offer maps from our map store to their millions of users. Imagine how many people go to TripAdvisor every day. Imagine if there’s a link there to get a map sent directly to your phone. The customer buys it, it is delivered to their phone, and because they bought it from an affiliate such as TripAdvisor, the affiliate would get a piece of that map sale.”

Another common scenario: you buy an airline ticket from Expedia, then the airline asks do you want to rent a car, hotel, theatre tickets, tours, etc. In addition, they can sell customers a map delivered directly to their phone.

There are many ways in which the Affiiliate Program can be useful to publishers and vendors. In Washington D.C. alone, at a Hilton Hotel, for example, thousands of hours a month are spent interacting with guests to give them a free paper map and directions. If there was a QR scan code at the hotel for PDF Maps, guests could get a map delivered to their phones and not take up as much time at the information desk.

Rather than alienating the brick-and- mortar businesses such as Borders, etc.. Avenza wants to enable retailers to participate in the digital economy of the map business. Avenza envisions having digital maps available in such places as airports, REI, Cabelas and other places where people would most likely be interested in acquiring maps.

As an aside, the National Geographic Society has been a big user of GIS for many years. Gary Nell, formerly of Sesame Street and NPR and currently CEO of National Geographic, spoke at Esri UC last year about journalist Paul Solomon, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for his reporting. Solomon’s claim to fame is that he has walked from Herto Bouri, Ethiopia and plans to hit the tip of Ushuaia, Argentina in 2020. His goal is to retrace the path of human migration across the entire earth in his “Eden Walk.”

“40% of kids under age 2 are using smartphones and tablets regularly,” said Nell. “This isn’t going away. Kids are digital natives. They will never know the world without it. We need to figure out real world apps that relate to them.”

Clearly PDF Maps is a way to go in the “real world app” category that will appeal to all those young digital natives out there.

From company materials: Retailers and businesses interested in joining the affiliate program can sign up for free and can get in contact with the PDF Maps team at http://www.pdf-maps.com/affiliates.

The PDF Maps app is available now on the iTunes App Store and Google Play Store free of charge for personal recreational use. A Windows version is currently in public beta release. Commercial, government and academic use licensing is available for a nominal annual fee. For more information about PDF Maps, visit http://www.pdf-maps.com or visit Avenza Systems at http://www.avenza.com. Pricing of each map is set by the publisher and free maps remain free to users through the PDF Maps in-app store. Commercial use licensing starts at US$49 per year and drops on a per-device basis as deployment numbers increase.

]]>http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2016/01/15/avenzas-pdf-maps-and-affiliate-program-for-digital-natives/feed/0GISCafe’s 2016 Trends Reporthttp://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2016/01/08/giscafes-2016-trends-report/
http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2016/01/08/giscafes-2016-trends-report/#commentsFri, 08 Jan 2016 16:21:31 +0000http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/?p=4303Top trends that we can expect to see dominating the geospatial landscape in 2016 are trends driven in large part by world events and climate change. Technologies play a large part in how well we will be able to manage climate change and attendant disasters, world events that include terrorism, and disease.

Our trends list includes: climate change, disease trends, indoor mapping, Esri storymapping, and low cost storage in the cloud, many of which are linked in importance.

Climate Change

Climate Change mapping analysis is a vital part of the big picture looking at how to manage the crisis of climate change globally.

Chen Zhen, Secretary General of CEDAAB (left) and Leon Qiu, Vice Secretary General of CEDAAB and Principal at DLR Group

In our coverage of COP21/CMP11it was noted by Prince Charles of the UK that climate change was a huge factor in nations’ suffering from famine and drought, which caused people to need to migrate away from their homes, which caused deep distress leading to terrorism. So in the larger scheme of things, climate change is linked to:

Jim Tobias, Senior GIS developer, Northrup Grumman Contractor, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, provided the above links as well as others in this article to enlighten some future trends.

According to Ed Mazria, Architecture 2030 Founder and CEO, the long term goal of the resultant Paris Agreement committed almost 200 countries including the U.S., China, India and the EU nations, to keep the global average temperature increase to “well below 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C”. The China Accord is a manifestation of the efforts of architects and planners in China and internationally to lower greenhouse emissions in the build environment.

Ed Mazria presenting the China Accord at the UNFCCC COP21 Buildings Day

Disease Trends

At two primary geospatial events last year, keynote speakers spoke on the topic of epidemiology.

When Ebola hit West Africa in 2014, the outbreak began similarly to the way it happened in central Africa originally, and may have come from an infected bat. The virus did something different this time. “The virus took advantage of the fact no one had seen it before and when they finally began to know about it, it had already spread across over 26,000 people, 11,000 people dead,” said Dr. Aylward.

“Stopping the outbreak would require extraordinary international and national response.”

Cultural problems were on the horizon as specially clad teams would have to come and carry away the dead which proved terrifying to the people in the small villages. This is a beautiful area, but the terrain isolates villages and also fed the rumor mill of who was coming to help and what the disease actually was.

What was indicative of for everyone involved, was that to fight a disease of such magnitude, responders should be prepared for it on a larger scale than just Africa in the event that it becomes disease that affects the rest of the world. We did see isolated cases of Ebola in the UK and the U.S. in 2014, as well as some other countries.

While indoor mapping has been talked about for many years, it would seem that with the use of more sensor technology, it is coming to the forefront. The need to be able to track indoor assets with GIS has been growing and while initially, it was considered for defense, it is now being used for retail and accessibility.

Las Vegas Convention Center

TomTom (TOM2) has announced a strategic partnership with worldwide indoor mapping leader, Micello Inc., extending the reach of its mapping products to include indoor venues.

TomTom’s business customers will now be able to use Micello’s pedestrian-friendly indoor maps and venue content with points-of-interest data worldwide.

Michael Healander, founder of Geometri, spoke with GISCafe Voice about the evolution of that company, and the recent announcement from Geographic Information Services, Inc. (GISi) an Esri Platinum Partner, that its Board of Directors has formally approved the spin-off of its operating unit, GISi Indoors, as an independent company. The new business is named Geometri, LLC., Geometri is the name of their flagship indoor GIS software-as-a-service product.

“The reason we got into indoor mapping,” said Healander, “Is we focused on the fact that when you go indoors you lose your navigation on your phone. And there’s a lot of opportunity as people spend money indoors. It’s hard to navigate, and we took on that problem. We built a platform and called it Geometri. We have taken complex pieces of technology to create indoor GPS, whether indoor maps, indoor routing or indoor search. We’ve taking the outdoor routing algorithms that we used in our main company and now we make them for indoor.”

Now you can do multi-floor routing, wheelchair accessibility routing, routing for how to get to class or through the building at the University of Washington. At the same institution, it will route you by selecting “avoid stairs” to support Americans with Disabilities Act.

Esri Storymapping has provided a large amount of data in a novelized way, that is easy to ingest and has revolutionized the way we can get data about a particular event.

As described by the author of the Star Wars Storymap, Isabella Rojs, “With this map, I would like to give you a worldwide tour of all the locations used for filming the six Star Wars movies. The tour will lead you from Episode I to Episode VI, from Guatemala to China.”

The Cloud has been on the geospatial bucket list for a few years now, but it continues to be an avenue by which more data can be stored, reviewed and manipulated.

(C) DigitalGlobe 2015.

The ability to share high resolution imagery is having a huge impact of world affairs, evidenced by the company SpaceKnow’s ability to show the historical activity at the North Korean Nuclear testing site that followed the reported Thermo Nuclear test this week. Spaceknow used its analytics to detect changes in the location of the supposed nuclear test facility. What their imagery shows is that the test facility has expanded over a larger geographical area in the past few years.

Using Spaceknow analytics, we were able to detect changes in the area of the supposed nuclear test facility. The facility clearly expanded over a larger area in the last years. All Images (C) DigitalGlobe 2015.

Esri and NASA are collaborating to improve access to imagery and raster data stored in the cloud, by using a combination of Meta Raster Format (MRF) and Limited Error Raster Compression (LERC).

According to company materials, MRF is an Open raster format originally designed at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) to optimize web access to rasters. LERC is a highly efficient algorithm that provides fast lossless and controlled lossy compression of image and raster data. Esri was recently awarded a US Patent for LERC, and is making the patented LERC technology freely available to the geospatial and earth sciences community.

The advantage of MRF and LERC that Esri and NASA will make available is that organizations will be able to lower storage costs and gain fast access to imagery and data as web services.

Handheld’s Nautiz X8 is an ultra rugged device

In addition, cloud enabled mobile devices allow data to be taken out into the field and gathered in the field with increasing efficiency. UAVs offer a new exciting way to gather data in the field at less cost than satellite imagery and scanning. Consequently, we will see more apps and ways of facilitating these processes as time goes on.

]]>http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2016/01/08/giscafes-2016-trends-report/feed/0From the Exhibit Floor: Esri User Conference 2015http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/07/29/from-the-exhibit-floor-esri-user-conference-2015/
http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/07/29/from-the-exhibit-floor-esri-user-conference-2015/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 14:11:39 +0000http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/?p=4117A look at what is being demonstrated on the Exhibit Floor is a great way to see what is trending in the geospatial industry. Location, navigation, GIS positioning, sensors, geospatial intelligence, UAS, 3D, emergency response are just a few of the areas covered in the vast offerings seen throughout the week.

I met with Darren Cottage, vice president Sales and Marketing Geospatial and Traffic, Government sales manager, Kenneth Clay, and North American marketing manager and John Cassidy, general manager, NA Sales & Marketing, Geospatial and Traffic of TomTom to discuss the company’s direction, which included their work with various partners, including Esri, Maponics and CarahSoft.

Announced at the conference was the addition of TomTom’s navigable maps for 13 new countries. TomTom provides traffic content in 134 countries around the globe. TomTom also announced that its map and traffic information had been chosen by the University of Minnesota’s Accessibility Observatory as part of a new national accessibility data set. They will provide map and historical speed data to help analyze accessibility to jobs for driving and transit for metropolitan areas across the U.S.

The analysis of where people live and where jobs are is multimodal, according to Cassidy, and research is done leveraging TomTom’s strategy around the connected world.

TomTom is providing real time GIS data for many application, including for emergency GIS, and they also do pedestrian mapping and indoor mapping.

TomTom products are designed for a lot of consumer devices but also in car navigation, and in geospatial applications such as emergency response.

Clay, who presented on indoor mapping a new focus for TomTom, said that half a dozen of cities are available for demonstration of stadiums, big facilities, and retail establishments

TomTom maps are used to manage where ATM machines are, and for their maintenance. They are also addressing multiple locations for an address, sewer hookup, delivery, and consumer needs.

A nice show case where TomTom’s advanced city models were used is the 3D Story Map of the Convention Center in San Diego by startup SmarterBetterCities and Esri atarcg.is/1K8Q1id.

TomTom is providing traffic analysis for the Pan American games in Toronto. They also supported the London Olympics and support autonomous vehicle technology.

PinPoint-GIS from Septentrio

The company Septentrio has been around since 2000, and the recently acquired Altus Positioning Systems since 2008. Altus is the supplier of GNSS positioning and surveying systems and GIS, who recently merged with Septentrio, a company known for their work on Galileo, subcontracted to the European Space Agency in Leuven, Belgium.

Septentrio is a spinoff of a university electronics program, IMEC, the Center for NanoTechnology Unit. Their history in research has now evolved into creating scientific receivers for timing and scintillated, signal processing. Meanwhile Septentrio has expanded in the survey and GIS markets. Neil Vancans, vice president of Septentrio, said that they have a channel for surveying developed but there has been no channel for GIS. In Europe there is a channel for both.

Altus Positioning Systems provides simple, affordable high precision receivers that can be used in any tablet as a browser, and can publish into ArcGIS.

Septentrio announced a new software suite called PinPoint-GIS which makes GIS data collection and visualization straightforward. Septentrio’s PinPoint-GIS provides several methods of data collection, based on a standard web browser hosted on the Altus APS-NR2 and a mobile app integrated with Esri’s ArcGIS or other GIS mapping systems.

SAP is known worldwide as a leading provider of business applications, ERP, CRM solutions. With their SAP HANA they provide spatial information of which Hinnerk Gildhoff, Development Manager, SAP HANA/Spatial says 80% is geospatial. At Esri the company announced new capabilities to turbocharge spatial intelligence by simplifying, accelerating and geo-enabling access to enterprise.

“We aim to transform the big apps trend to real time apps, to take action where the data is,” said Gildhoff.

HANA is designed to help break down silos between enterprise and GIS system, and do analytics on a single system. It is an end-to-end platform for running applications. It has engines for running predictive analytics, can do unstructured data mining from Facebook and other social media and can provide geospatial capabilities.

Gildhoff said all applications in SAP are going spatial using the HANA processor as a spatial engine. The SAP Work Manager mobile app has added Esri feature layer integration and offline mapping capabilities.

In meeting with director of Strategy and Corporate Development, Chris Stern of Trimble, he spoke about how Trimble meets “industry specific challenges” through its core technologies and products. Esri, with whom Trimble has partnered for over 20 years, is organized more around vertical sectors. The two organizations share many joint customers. Their services and solutions include point data collection, mass data collection, aerial and ground based scanning, sensors, point clouds and imagery and integrated industry specific solutions.

Trimble is very focused on Big Data and the Internet of Things with sensors, laser scanning, and optical, bringing in major data this way. The new version of their UAS the UX5 and UX5 HP is a fixed wing unmanned aerial mapping system and the company showcased its new multi-rotor copter that can hover. It is useful for electric transmission inspection, emergency response, and damage reconnaissance. The UX5 and UX5 HP offer aerial data collection by offering complete systems with powerful technologies such as a robust design, a radically simplified workflow and reversed thrust and automatic failsafe procedures.

Trimble’s software eCognition takes content, extracts features and makes datasets. The company has an underlying set of software to access Esri. eCognition addresses the increased demand for 3D data.

“We’ve always been 3D, helping customers collect highly accurate X,Y and Z data and 3D models,” said Stern. “Now there is 3D in ArcGIS Pro and CityEngine. We have Trimble SketchUp 3D Design and the 3D Warehouse – the world’s largest online catalogue of 3D content.”

Stern talked about ArcGIS Earth and the fact that Trimble has 3D already. They have centimeter accuracy in the Trimble V10 imaging rover, with 12 integrated 60MP cameras taking in 360 degree views.

In the Trimble Business Center software, as part of a new feature set, the 360 degree image comes in, the user clicks on a point at the pixel level, and based on the original position, can give you distance of measurements.

Trimble UX5

Another feature is that when imagery is brought in, a set of measurements can be taken specifically for UAS.

With the new Trimble R1 receiver, one of Trimble’s newly introduced line of BYOD GNSS products, users go to the field with the phone with an IOS or Android smartphone or tablet with Trimble Terraflex software – for fast, efficient, geospatial data collection across a fleet of mixed devices that supports submeter accuracy. Their Spectra Precision MobileMapper 300 takes advantage of RTX mobile positioning to achieve centimeter accuracy with Android devices. The goal of these products is to achieve less scientific access to accurate data.

Trimble also introduced at the conference the latest version of its smart water mapping and work management cloud software, Trimble Unity version 2.0. According to company materials, the version adds new capabilities to support complex water, wastewater and stormwater industry asset maintenance planning and work execution workflows. The new release supports Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) GNSS mapping receivers for smart devices and cloud-based single sign-on integration with Esri ArcGIS Online.

Utility customers can search and organize various utility assets, including meters, pipelines, valves and hydrants with Trimble Unity version 2.0 advanced asset maintenance capabilities. These assets can be grouped into prioritized collections of work that can be assigned to crews for completion. The new features enable utilities to reduce the time and cost associated with water asset repair and installation work.

Stern noted that the new Esri GeoCollector includes Esri software of course, and Esri has added Trimble’s R1 and some other Trimble technologies to their offerings.

Summing up, Stern said that Trimble’s core technologies include hardware, software, and positioning/sensors. “We always bring all that together to help customers solve problems across a variety of industries,” he said.

The company HERE, Maps for Life, formerly NAVTEQ three years ago, is a Nokia business unit that brings together Nokia’s mapping and location businesses under one umbrella. HERE technology is based on cloud computing, where location data and services are stored on remote servers. Users can access the data on any device.

HERE provides new vector-based data for Esri’s StreetMap brand of mapping products. HERE captures location content that includes road networks, buildings, park and traffic patterns. It licenses or sells that content along with navigation services and location based solutions to other businesses.

HERE has maps in nearly 200 countries, offers voice guided navigation in 94 countries, provides live traffic information in 33 countries and has indoor maps available for about 49,000 unique buildings in 45 countries.

Reality Capture Solutions from Leica Geosystems

Outside the convention center on a trailer was the Leica Geosystems Pegasus: Stream which is said to “measure the invisible.” It is a reality capturing sensor platform for below and above ground mass feature digitization.

Startup Zone

Esri Start up companies who are called “emerging partners” were celebrated at a media event on Monday evening during the Map Gallery. Over 50 startups were exhibiting at the conference. Working with the Esri Startup team, TomTom built a premium content offering for large volume geocoding and routing called “StreetMap Premium for Startups,” a steeply discounted product designed just for those inside the Esri Startup Program.

MetroTech is partnering with both OSI and Esri to aggregate real-time traffic data, apply analytics and publish information that users can use to make decisions. Senior vice president of sales and service delivery, Robert Bruckner, says that traffic is “stuck in the 90s’ technology,” and that MetroTech provides the next generation of traffic analytics.

SenseFly’s eBee mapping drones were exhibited on the main Exhibit Floor but were considered in startup category. The various Styrofoam-appearing eBee models are very lightweight and come in various designs. The eMotion 3D mission planning feature takes elevation data into account when setting altitude of waypoints and resulting flight lines. The models are lightweight so they cannot damage other flying objects or electrical lines. Models are flown by computer, and one is battery operated on an SD card. You can use eBee’s postflight Terra 3D software to process your flight’s photos. In just a few clicks you can transform this imagery into geo-referenced 2D orthomosaics, 3D point clouds, triangle models and Digital Elevation Models (DEMs).

DroneDeploy is a simple cloud based software that allows anyone to create on-demand aerial drone maps in a single click.

Kespry designs a commercial-grade drone system that autonomously collects and analyzes high resolution geospatial information. It is very fast, with fully interconnected software included. It comes with an iPad, drone, limited access to Kespry cloud, and a groundstation. It is 3D printed and made of milled aluminum.

Echosec

Another interesting startup is Echosec, a new location based social media search platform owned by a Russian organization, designed to provide intelligence to public safety, security professionals, marketing, law enforcement, security and governments using crowdsourced data. It can provide actionable information on terror attacks, and law enforcement can see where tweets and Facebook posts are coming from in trying to solve crimes.

MapJam really appeals to media and publishing as well as commercial business with its next generation location mapping platform to empower brands to create and distribute customized maps with contextualized information.

SmarterBetterCities (mentioned above in the section on TomTom) offers easy to use 3D software built on ArcGIS for the creation and management of 3D cities. They call this product “CloudCities” and it allows you to configure dashboards online, drag in charts and building data. It can also host a library of scenes such as those from CityEngine and ArcGIS Pro.

FireWhat?

FireWhat? emergency disaster response for wildfires was mentioned in Monday’s plenary session during the segment on “Fire.” The application uses real-time GIS with expert sourced information specifically for fires.

Pufferfish Puffersphere

Pufferfish has created the Puffersphere, a globe that allows you to display digital content in a 3D way, on a globe, using 360 degree video. You can use the basic finger gestures of pinch and push to expand an area or retract it to zoom in or out of a desired geographic location. This is valuable for marketing and advertising, digital display and potentially many other uses where traditional flat screen media just isn’t enough.

Summary

Well established vendors’ offerings continue to push the envelope, making the most of the cloud, actionable intelligence, open source and real-time data to address the most pressing challenges of environment, safety, health and security. Startups arrive on the scene with less legacy baggage that allows them to negotiate the quick paced technology scene with enviable ease. There is a buoyancy to their presentations and enthusiasm that the larger vendors seek and embrace, and will I’m sure make its way into many future major product and application offerings.

According to event organizers, hosted and produced by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), a non-profit non-lobbying educational organization, the annual GEOINT Symposium is the nation’s largest gathering of intelligence professionals and the preeminent intelligence event of the year.

I’m making interview appointments at the moment and looking forward to seeing many of you there. Contact me, Susan Smith, Editor, susan.smith@ibsystems.com if you wish to schedule an interview. Our president, Sanjay Gangal,will also be conducting video interviews at Booth # is 3092. Please contact him at sanjay@ibsystems.com if you wish to schedule a video interview.

]]>http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/06/15/giscafe-at-geoint-2015/feed/0GISCafe Special Feature Blog: Emergency Response and Recoveryhttp://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/03/20/giscafe-special-feature-blog-emergency-response-and-recovery/
http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/03/20/giscafe-special-feature-blog-emergency-response-and-recovery/#commentsFri, 20 Mar 2015 22:46:49 +0000http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/?p=3880In recent years, Emergency Response and Recovery has been tasked with addressing the growing number of natural disasters and manmade disasters worldwide. When a disaster happens, the role of GIS and geospatial is front and center in the identification of location and the location of individuals impacted in the event, as well as the clarification of the physical damage to vital structures. It is also fundamental to the provision of medical care and utilities during a time when those things may be scarce or non-existent.

In gathering information for this article, I was surprised by the depth of the responses. As a result, this article will outline not only geospatial technologies available, but the importance of different solutions for interoperability, location, 3D urban models, technology designed for local responders, traffic jam data, field applications and much more.

The offerings from some of the smaller providers round out the solutions from the bigger companies with some very insightful perspectives on the bigger picture of emergency response.

Services and Products

Chris McIntosh, Emergency Management Industry Manager said that when disaster strikes, Esri’s Disaster Response Program (DRP) Disaster Relief is there to support responders around the clock, 24 x 7. “Request assistance from Esri experts, augment software, explore content, and monitor events online as part of our corporate citizenship. We’re there when responders need us most,” he said.

According to Kalyn Sims, Vice President of Public Safety Products, Intergraph SG&I, Intergraph provides extensive solutions for public safety, security and emergency management. These include integrated capabilities for public safety dispatching, law enforcement records management, data reporting and analysis, physical security information management and field solutions, including mobile apps. Also included are geospatial visualization, analysis and information management capabilities for emergency planning, preparedness and recovery.

Intergraph states that the foundation for public safety, security and emergency management operations is a common operational picture (COP). By referencing data to a common spatial framework, a COP provides a comprehensive, up-to-the-minute view of the situation on the ground, fusing static mapping with real-time data feeds, often from multiple agencies and organizations.

The COP’s spatial framework helps the operator understand situations more quickly by showing the locational context of an incident and providing links to supplementary information that can help determine whether action is required. It also enables spatial analysis techniques to be applied to real-time data to automate and streamline processes, saving vital time; for example, optimizing the locations of responders to enable shortest response times across a service area.

In the news just this past week was a collaboration announcement between Intergraph and Esri to enhance geospatial capabilities for public safety and security agencies. Through this collaboration the companies will work together to align Intergraph’s Computer-Aided Dispatch system, I/CAD and Esri’s ArcGIS platform.

TomTom’s content is used by their partners who provide various visualization solutions implemented in a wide range of applications, including emergency management and response. TomTom develops, maintains and distributes advanced navigable map data for 127 countries throughout the world. They also provide real-time traffic information for 46 countries.

Trimble offers a variety of modeling and analysis software that enables assessment and visualization of existing, planned, and changed environments, both built and natural, according to Rick Gosalvez, market manager, Trimble Local Government. Some of Trimble’s visualization solutions include SketchUp for easy rendering and modeling, Inpho UASMaster for rapid aerial mapping, eCognition for rapid land classification and advanced change analysis, and Trimble Feedback for centralized review and visualization of crowdsourced data collected from the public.

Trimble UX5

Seamless image capture and image analysis technology enables governments to collect a massive amount of data and mine it for useful information in a short amount of time. For example, eCognition consumes Trimble UX5 imagery and compares it to historical aerial images to conduct change analysis for emergency response planning.

Smaller companies with significant emergency response offerings include the following:

Pictometry, an EagleView Company, offers RapidAccess, an emergency response program offering immediate flights after an emergency or disaster. Within days, Pictometry can capture high-resolution aerial imagery post event, allowing users to view damage quickly in support of rescue, recovery and assessment efforts. It enables emergency teams to prioritize response with the help of up-to-date, high resolution imagery within days of the disaster, helping to get people back on track quickly.

International Computer Works, Inc. (ICW) provides data conversion, software, training and support. Specifically, GeoNENA and GeoCAD911 provide direct application to the construction of the 911 database for the PSAP and a real time map display with address recommendations for use in dispatching for calls originating from a mobile device.

CubeWerx OpenImageMap

CubeWerx is a geospatial products and services company offering rapid cloud-based hosting, processing and delivery of aerial imagery through Open APIs. Cubewerx OpenImageMap is an innovative, collaborative platform for deploying any volume of geospatial imagery and then delivering it seamlessly through multiple Open APIs, protected by a robust and security layer.

OpenImageMap is a collaborative image tiling platform that provides a cloud-hosted geospatial platform where multiple stake-holders can post aerial imagery, process it and serve it out as a combined map via standard APIs like Google Maps, Bing, OGC Services (WMS and WMTS) etc.

Maptitude Generic GIS and mapping software is designed to model 3D environments within a GIS system at no additional cost. This makes it possible for even small communities to model their towns to be better prepared for emergency events.

In an emergency, you need accurate data quickly. You don’t have time to hunt for it; you need to be able to access information to support critical decisions with only a few interactions. AOP makes interagency intelligence, crowdsourced social media feeds and associated map data accessible with a tap, click or targeted search.

deployment of public safety assets using GIS technology. Over 200 organizations have already reduced response times to routine 9-1-1 incidents and improved compliance with organizational response goals through a better understanding of demand patterns and response capabilities.

According to Chris Bradshaw, vice president of Marketing, “Our newest version of MARVLIS is extending these same benefits to law enforcement organizations by providing unique, tiered crime forecasts to improve the actions that lead to meaningful results in reducing crimes.”

MARVLIS from BCS uses ArcGIS technology to forecast demand hotspots for an entire jurisdiction several times each hour. These automatically updated demand surfaces visualize changing patterns similar to the way meteorologists visualize and forecast weather patterns. Vehicle GPS locations are superimposed on the demand grid along with a dynamic vector service area to identify resource response capabilities along with the expected demand.

Tony Isaacs vice president, Business Development described their company as follows: “PLW Modelworks provides geospecific, geolocated 3D urban models from our Melbourne, FL offices as content that can be used for any purpose, including Emergency Response and Recovery Solutions. Our 3D models are simulation ready and we work with our clients to provide customized optimizations for them.”

What the Future Will Look Like

McIntosh notes that “The future of Emergency Management surrounds the use of mission focused applications that allow responders to access, share, and visualize information how they need it, when they need it, and where you need it.”

Coming up to the plate, modern technologies, web GIS, the cloud, and the rise of apps have combined to bring powerful emergency response solutions into reach for most customers. Variations in implementations from completely hosted to “on premise” environments allow municipalities and communities to configure solutions that accurately meet their needs.

According to Kenneth Clay, marketing manager, TomTom, “a critical component of emergency response is the ability to quickly and accurately identify the location of the situation. TomTom produces real-time maps, meaning they more closely mimic real-world conditions. The company is able to accomplish this mission through a hybrid approach that optimizes professional mapmaking through the use of community input from hundreds of millions of map users.”

The critical location and transportation information TomTom incorporates comes from mobile mapping vans, field survey, authoritative resources, probe data and sensors. These resources are fused through a transactional mapmaking engine, producing map changes that are distributed regularly. “This ensures our partners have access to the most recent map changes,” said Clay.

The future of Emergency Response, according to Clay, is an improved ability to find the location of interest, coupled with improved drive-time efficiency derived from real-time views of current traffic conditions.

“I see Emergency Response continuing to mature and take advantage of new technologies to provide superior levels of service at times of need,” said Isaacs. “As hardware becomes more powerful and inexpensive more sophisticated scenario planning using advanced simulation software with content such as PLW 3D urban models can be used to best prepare for an emergency. In addition, real-time systems can take advantage of these and other technological advances to provide actionable information to those involved in the management of emergency response resources. These sophisticated systems are occurring at all levels of the government.”

Sims says that the move toward Next Generation 911 presents enormous challenges and opportunities. “Soon, citizens will use voice, text, video, photos and even social media to “call” 911. Public safety answering points (PSAPs) will also receive information from vehicle telematics, intelligent roadway systems, citizen medical information services and other sensors and services.”

This wealth of information has the capability to improve response decisions and increase the safety of first responders, according to Sims. It also has the possibility of overwhelming the PSAP. It is critical that dispatch systems manage this data so that it can be used efficiently by call-takers, dispatchers and first responders. Intergraph has developed software that will help integrate call control and call-taker functions in one environment and integrate voice and text calls with video and photo attachments for better situational awareness.

Latitude Geographics states that stakeholder interoperability during incident response is an important goal. Achieving the use of standard alerting protocols and sensor web integration will play a large role in the years ahead. Programs such as UICDS, XchangeCore, MASAS-X (Canada), Oasis, Virtual USA and others are striving to provide necessary data to the responder community, with others expected to come on board in the future.

According to Ken Tozier, GISP International Computer Works, Inc., “The future of Emergency Response is in the field. Direct updates to central, shared databases and maps by field personnel and first responders. More of this will be automated and produced in real-time as sensors and tracking technology improves.”

“Rapid information after an emergency is critical,” said Scott Sherwood, vice president, Corporate Sales Enablement, Pictometry. “The ability to see pre- and post-event imagery allows response teams to work effectively and efficiently. With ever changing weather and other uncontrollable events, response teams need to have procedures in places, such as RapidAccess, to know they can obtain accurate geo-coded imagery immediately to gather needed data and intelligence. The need for this type of high-resolution imagery and the ability to view it within days will only grow in demand.”

What we will most likely see also are more collaborations between major geospatial organizations such as the one between Esri and Intergraph.

Market Changes

The rise of applications are bringing GIS mainstream, says McIntosh. “Now the market is being driven by mission focused apps that leverage the power of the GIS that are in the hands of responders.”

According to Latitude, there is a growing need for better interoperability, mobile solutions, real-time data, social media integration, decision support and more.

“The change we have seen in emergency response mapping is the need to be able to rapidly map data, out-of-the-box, and to have the tools needed at their finger-tips to analyze geospatial data immediately,” says CEO Stewart Berry. “Maptitude meets those needs.”

Along the same lines, Sherwood says “speed to delivery and the expectations associated with that are escalating. As technology has grown, so the market looks to providers to be able to deliver rapidly after a disaster in a scalable way that fits within current workflows.”

Isaacs said there is more demand for 3D content for Emergency Response solutions at the municipal and community levels as well as from providers of simulation software for this market.

And Bradshaw of BCS reminds us that, all emergency responses are ultimately supported by a finite group of local, or extended mutual-aid, responders. “While it is tempting to focus efforts on the occasional large disasters that make headlines, technology that helps local dispatchers, resource deployment managers, and incident managers to utilize these resources most effectively in their daily operations is most beneficial. Regular use returns the greatest value by maximizing operational budgets throughout the year. This familiarity with the application also means it can be adapted for special occasions whether planned or unplanned.”

Resilient cities are those that will bounce back after a major disaster, according to Trimble’s Golsavez “To accomplish resiliency, governments will require properly planned infrastructure and programs to quickly assess impacts caused by major events. With UAS, mobile imaging and remote sensing technologies, governments will be able to quickly accomplish damage assessments in order to prioritize response efforts from a macro to micro scale. These technologies are available today and getting better quickly”.

With technology that allows governments to easily capture conditions for their built and natural environments, governments will be in a position to be more resilient because they will be able to quickly compare before and after impacts of events and programs.

The market has significantly changed with the advent of modern in-vehicle navigation and smartphone technologies, according to Clay of TomTom. “These technologies denote that emergency response solutions are not only lower cost, but also reach the public more effectively than previous technologies.”

Costs

More affordable Emergency Response solutions are predicted for the future for municipalities and communities. All respondents agree that trends like mobility and the cloud, platforms such as smartphones and tablets to empower field personnel to send and receive real-time information as part of an enterprise information system, all conspire to make Emergency Response solutions more accessible, timely and cost-effective.

A significant portion of past spending in public safety has been based on grants that are now becoming less accessible. Organizations are increasingly being required to live within budgets. Preferred solutions will be those that can show a record of saving money and improving agency performance.

“I think that the cost of hardware capable of running the systems used for Emergency Response will continue to decrease and that software solutions will continue to become more sophisticated and affordable over time,” said Isaacs. “Also, the effectiveness of Emergency Response solutions will continue to improve in both the scenario planning and actual crisis management areas which will allow municipalities and communities to obtain stakeholder buy-in for the expected costs.”

Clay notes that a key component of TomTom’s sourcing strategy is the use of anonymous GPS-based probe data. This probe data comes from personal navigation devices, third party applications and fleet solutions, smartphones. “When compared to traditional detection and survey methods,” said Clay, “Use of probe data has proven equally effective from a quality perspective, yet much more cost effective by foregoing manpower and fleet expenses associated with driving surveys or Bluetooth deployments.”

Tozier says, “Costs may not change, but with NG911 the ability to accurately respond to calls for emergency services for the protection of life, limb and property will improve. The shift to GIS as the basis for building the digital model vs traditional tabular databases have the strong potential for the creation of accurate and precise databases.”

Game Changers in the Industry

Emergency management organizations face tremendous challenges meeting greater demands with fewer resources. Esri’s common operation platform supports the complex mission of preventing, protecting against, mitigating, responding to and recovering from threats and hazards. Communities will also be able to connect up with local, state, national and international agencies that support the mission.

“The availability of data and the ability to quickly deliver that data in a focused way to operators on any device at any time will fundamentally change the way that we do business,” says Esri’s Chris McIntosh.

Vector Grid with Hurricane Wind and Pressure DataFeatured Map – June 2013This Maptitude map shows a color theme of wind and a scaled symbol theme of pressure based on historical hurricane track vector data. The map comes from Prof. Grant Thrall’s video, Part 2: Vector To Raster Grid Conversion: Calculation of Risk to Real Estate. Nuclear Power Plant Disasters in the U.S.? Maptitude maps featured in MapCruzin.com report.

Maptitude includes the ability to model 3D environments within a GIS system at no additional cost: 3D mapping . This allows even small communities to model their towns to be better prepared for emergency situations.

“Change detection is game changing in emergency response,” says Sherwood of Pictometry. “Not only can Pictometry provide rapid high-resolution imagery within days, but they can also follow that with ongoing change analysis for the county. It is third-party verification of change that was create by the disaster or emergency. For flooding or storms, this is critical, not just for the initial response, but for ongoing assessment after the emergency.”

Intergraph has a long history of innovation in emergency response. “For example, we were the first vendor to offer a dispatch system with a fully integrated map and geographic database,” says Sims.

Most geospatial companies that offer Emergency Response solutions work with other geospatial companies to enhance the strength of their services.

Will Climate Change Driven Storms Result in Fukushima-Like Nuclear Power Plant Disasters in the U.S.?Featured Map – January 2013Maptitude maps are featured in a MapCruzin.com report on the likelihood that flooding at dozens of nuclear reactors could result in a Fukushima-like disaster in the U.S.MapCruzin

An example is, ICW, that offers an economical real time map display along with the tools with which to build the data used in the system running in a MapInfo Professional platform. Regional data sharing does not have to be GIS brand dependent. On the contrary, data portability across platforms is the key.

PLW Modelworks works with geospatial software companies such as ESRI and Autodesk to provide 3D urban model content optimized for their platforms. Combined with the advances and cost efficiencies in hardware, these optimizations allow more sophisticated simulation, tracking and real-time solutions to be offered to end-users. PLW can also utilize multiple input sources such as UAV or mobile mapping data to create and/or enhance their 3D urban models.

TomTom provides real-time map content that contains the most up-to-date depiction of the road network that is commercially available. The company also offers real time traffic content with average speeds and incident data available every minute.

“With access to real-time maps and traffic content from TomTom, and the adoption of weather content, partner solutions can more accurately depict current transportation conditions, thus leading to more efficient Emergency Response,” says Clay.

Summary

All those in Federal, state, county and local governments can benefit and save lives with an efficient Emergency Response template in place. Utilities, water, and environmental industries, homeland security, border control, public safety, security and emergency management organizations, fleet tracking, usage-based insurance, resource management, disaster relief, agriculture, mining, oil and gas, forestry who are dependent upon having access to the most recent information in rapidly changing scenarios are potential and real customers for advancements in Emergency Response.

The future of Emergency Response is now; each day another opportunity arises to exercise the muscles of the new technologies and learn more about what will be needed for faster response, 24/7 coverage, data reporting and physical security, and how to address recovery and much more. With new 3D cities technologies in place, governments and agencies will also be able to build more resilient cities to withstand whatever emergencies befall them.

]]>http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/03/20/giscafe-special-feature-blog-emergency-response-and-recovery/feed/0From the Exhibit Floor: Esri UC 2014http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2014/07/22/from-the-exhibit-floor-esri-uc-2014/
http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2014/07/22/from-the-exhibit-floor-esri-uc-2014/#commentsWed, 23 Jul 2014 05:18:56 +0000http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/?p=3438The Exhibit Floor reveals industry trends, as vendors respond to requests of their customers with timely products and services. The emphasis at Esri UC 2014 was on data and apps, reflecting the trends discussed in Monday’s Plenary session. Global data, the mining of crowdsourcing data, spatial analytics to business users, the launch of WorldView-3 that will open up worlds of data previously unable to be explored – are just a few of the exciting areas covered in the exhibits and special vendor presentations.

TomTom Traffic

This year marked the 22nd Esri conference for veteran company TomTom, which derived originally from the company GDT and later TeleAtlas. According to John Cassidy, vice president of sales and James Pardue, licensing, TomTom’s focus has evolved from the original interest in making Census data better back in the GDT days, to spatial navigation in the present day. Hardware, analytical, navigation and spatial are the primary areas of their business.

Cassidy said that in 2013, 6 billion pieces of information per day were processed by TomTom. In 2014, already 9 billion pieces of information per day have been processed. Their focus has become quality accuracy and quality control.

“Real world users are more valuable,” said Cassidy. “A lot information is gathered using smartphones.”

Cassidy added that they see a need for change in routing systems. A model of detect-mitigate-monitor has been established in the U.S. navigation systems, but there is a need to grow this to other countries. There is a huge market for routing traffic in Russia, China and Brazil, for purposes of business analytics, navigation and government. TomTom has launched a new traffic system in those geographies.

TomTom has a commercial crowdsourcing strategy with their own maps and devices. They work with three out of five mobile phone companies.

“We now have processing power and now have engineers instead of compilers,” said Cassidy. “We can detect, update and deliver information in a short amount of time.”

TomTom’s MapCode is landmark navigation for those countries who do not have street names, such as India and Brazil. MapCode spans the globe and can be used anywhere. Every square is 5 square millimeters. People can create these themselves, and people can be located within 5 meters of their location. MapCodes are 4-7 digits and are congruent with ISO standards, as well as Open Source, and free.

Accela GIS – Civic Platform

Brian Wienke at Accela said their customers use mapping, GIS, and spatial data in everything they do. Their product has a new user interface, look and feel.

In the R&D phase are iOS and Android inspector products, using Google Glass. The idea is to have hands free while receiving inspection, permitting and licensing reports.

The other area of development for Accela is the Civic Platform that will afford additional access to Accela’s workflow engine. “Through APIs, developers can build on their own,” said Wienke. “Citizens -> back office -> field = ecosystem.” This new platform will be announced in two weeks at the Accela User Conference.

Geometri offers GISi indoors, an indoor GIS navigation system. The Geometri Enterprise server has nodes in various locations in the building. Customers can gather information on repeat and unique visitor breakdown. If you have a node, you plug in to it drawing from proximity to the sensor.

Geometri Point is a single point sensor set up with the same analytics. In response to the information gathered, customers can move the merchandise around in store, or place a sensor in a car in a mall and find out if that car moved traffic to the car dealership.

GISi indoors also executes “dwell distribution” for airports to find out when traffic peaks so the airport can figure out when to ramp up staff. Developers can use the Navigator SDK to develop services specific to businesses. Geometri Point costs is $59/month as a base rate with discounts for numbers. Geometri Enterprise costs are based on the number of nodes.

SAP has expanded its relationship with Esri, and acquired Business Objects last year. Known primarily as an ERP and CRM company, SAP has found that their customers need the interface with GIS, but until recently, it hasn’t been easy to achieve.

The partnership brings high-performance spatial analytics, self-service mapping and collaboration to GIS and business users to allow them to leverage real-time location intelligence in both their Esri and SAP environments.

60% of Esri customers have asset intensive enterprises, and want native integration of SAP with GIS. Last year SAP and Esri announced the integration and this year it has been realized.

The four pillars of this integration are as follows:

1) The SAP Hana spatial processing platform makes SAP spatially enabled. Esri’s GIS can run geoprocessing natively on Hana. ArcGIS 10.3 can now use native processing. Business users can run complex spatial queries on massive volumes of data in real-time using SAP HANA via Esri Query Layers. This functionality works to accelerate location analytics because Esri ArcGIS executes queries natively on SAP HANA closer to where the data resides.

SAP’s Match Insight was instrumental in Germany’s winning the World Cup, by spatially enabling the information of the players using data driven metrics. The coach was able to watch videos of the players and devise a training program around that information.

2) Business Intelligence Analytics – Now with geoenrichment, users can do demographic breakdowns and drive time inside the SAP system. The new release of SAP Hana also includes an extension of the SAP and Esri partnership to include geospatial analytics from ArcGIS Online within SAP Lumira, the SAP solution for agile visualization. This will help customers leverage existing Esri ArcGIS server and online Esri maps inside business intelligence tools from SAP, enabling users to visualize data on a map to help see new patterns and trends

3) Mobility – SAP added new integration with SAP Mobile Platform to extend geospatial data from ESRI ArcGIS systems to its mobile field employees as a part of SAP Work Manager mobile app. SAP Work Manager enables users to manipulate interactive maps and to obtain more detailed information on the geographic region in question.

4) Business Apps for CRM and ERP – In the past, the business user had to do CRM workarounds to have GIS in their applications. Now their consulting arm has geoenabled apps for the customer to link GIS information to SAP Business Suite Applications.

With the GEO.e framework delivered by SAP Consulting, spatial data is embedded into business processes, helping to enable users to visualize business data about land parcels, buildings, assets or work orders on maps from within an SAP application.

iForm Builder with small server device and solar cell backpack

iForm Builder is an interesting company whose customers are primarily NGOs. With their data collection app using their own devices, users have the ability to code the app with logic and use it offline.

In Africa, for example, there is no internet connection most of the time. The iForm Builder product includes a server inside a small box, and a backpack equipped with solar cells.

Ryan Coleman of iForm Builder said that this information goes to ArcGIS and is really the model for “data as a service.” 110 countries in four years have become customers of iForm Builder.

SARscape mosaicking

EXELIS VIS vice president of Product Marketing, Beau Legeer, gave a presentation on the topic, “Advanced Modalities and GIS.”

Legeer said that SAR technology has been around along time but is more expensive for regular GIS users, and is only used by governments. Some good SAR data may now be available for free.

More spectral bands from multi-spectral and hyper-spectral sensors will be available from WorldView-3, and there are new ways to exploit LiDAR. In the past it has been limited to DEMS and feature extraction data.

DigitalGlobe senior scientist, Product Development and Labs, Bill Baugh followed with his talk on “Mineral Mapping Using WorldView Bands.”

He discussed using stereo information as well as multi-spectral models to create an image of Mt. Everest. Take one satellite, Baugh said, do a one-dimensional model and do a virtual outcrop. They have created a wireframe elevation model and draped it with imagery so it can be viewed geologically. This is a remote outcrop of Mt. Everest.

WorldView-3 is superspectral and has 16 spectrums, and contains the overall structure of spectrum. There are bands on the CAVIS sensor for retrieving information from the atmosphere.

“The bands coming in WorldView-3 will allow you to go after data you might not be able to go after normally,” said Baugh. “You’ll be able to see iron, rocks (short wave infrared) and steel infrastructure.”

Additionally, with SWIR-6 you can see through the smoke from a fire, which would be valuable for crisis response, when you have to see what’s on the ground.

An RGB display is indicative of minerals. You will be able to see what spectrum different roofs are in. Altogether, you will have better spectral resolution, atmospheric retrieval sensor, light matter interaction, red blue and green display, and spectral matching. Apps for these displays will include RGB display, mineral indices, and rooftop classification.

“We need to know how much water is in the atmosphere,” said Baugh. “This has been a real problem for SWIR bands.”

]]>http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2014/07/22/from-the-exhibit-floor-esri-uc-2014/feed/0Open developer portal launched for TomTom Bridgehttp://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2014/06/13/open-developer-portal-launched-for-tomtom-bridge/
http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2014/06/13/open-developer-portal-launched-for-tomtom-bridge/#commentsFri, 13 Jun 2014 16:11:25 +0000http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/?p=3377TomTom launched an open developer portal for the developer platform, TomTom Bridge, this week that allows for integration of business applications with TomTom technologies. TomTom Bridge is designed for those businesses that run a fleet of vehicles, and the new portal makes it possible for developers, integrators and value-added partners to build business apps. Developers will get access to SDKs, that include tips on the best use of the platform.

Included in the new platform are a fully customizable app store, AppCarousel, for businesses to match their choice of apps, branding and features. Page Up is enabling a series of mobile solutions with Near Field Communication and bar code scanner, digital signature app and connection to a Bluetooth printer. The new open developer portal also provides detailed information on Application Programming Interface, a document library and case studies and links to TomTom Content downloads.